IVIV Aunt Reet

[John Carvill]

That heart-to-heart:


HEART-TO-HEART, MAN-TO-MAN

—Son, been wondering about this, ah, "screwing in" you kids are doing.
This matter of the, shooting electricity into head, ha-ha?

—Waves, Pop. Not just raw electricity. That's fer drips!

—Yes, ah, waves. "Keying waves," right? ha-hah. Uh, tell me, son,
what's it like? You know I've been something of a doper all m'life,
a-and—

—Oh Pop. Gripes. It isn't like dope at all!

—Well we got off on some pretty good "vacations" we called them then,
some pretty "weird" areas they got us into 's a matter of fact—

—But you always came back, didn't you.

—What?

—I mean it was always understood that this would still be here when
you got back, just the same, exactly the same, right?

—Well ha-ha guess that's why we called 'em vacations, son! Cause you
always do come back to old Realityland, don't you.

—You always did.

—Listen Tyrone, you don't know how dangerous that stuff is.Suppose
someday you just plug in and go away and never come back? Eh?

—Ho, ho! Don't I wish! What do you think every electrofreak dreams
about? You're such an old fuddyduddy! A-and who sez it's a dream, huh?
M-maybe it exists. Maybe there is a Machine to take us away, take us
completely, suck us out through the electrodes out of the skull 'n'
into the Machine and live there forever with all the other souls it's
got stored there. It could decide who it would suck out, a-and when.
Dope never gave you immortality. You hadda come back, every time, into
a dying hunk of smelly meat! But We can live forever, in a clean,
honest, purified Electroworld—

—Shit that's what I get, havin' a double Virgo fer a son. . . .